Sound Recordings

100% analogue recording studio.

Records made by hand, magnets & electricity.

SINCE 2014

Sound Recordings has been respectfully operating on Dja Dja Wurrung Country (Castlemaine). This facility is a fully analogue recording studio, operated by Alex Bennett, a highly skilled sound engineer and machine technician. Set within rambling stone buildings, surrounded by countryside and fruit trees, the studio offers a tranquil, immersive environment where your creative vision unfolds naturally, free from distraction.

EQUIPMENT

The studio houses a vast collection of vintage and custom-made recording equipment. The tape machines on site range from the 1950’s to the 1980’s — allowing artists to partake in the many styles and practices of analogue studio recording throughout the Golden Age, and beyond!

Whether you want to record a minimal live performance onto a mono machine, or construct a 2” multi-track masterpiece with overdubs, ‘punch-ins’, ‘spot-erasures’ and late-70’s studio-sorcery, we have you covered!

We can even bounce between tape machines — to create sub-mixes and increase track-count. There is nothing Alex won’t try!

With a variety of outboard effects / audio processors, vintage microphones, amplifiers and instruments available for use, there is (almost) no limit to the sonic palette you are able to create.

If you’d like to see a full and esoteric list of equipment, please email Alex.

SPACES

The Live Room is a 10m x 11m sedimentary stone building, with a 5m high timber-lined vaulted ceiling. This is an excellent sounding space for tracking full bands, small ensembles or massive drum sets. The high stud height and stone walls provide a large feel with pleasantly diffused reflections. There is a number of movable acoustic panels to create isolated ‘nooks’ for players / amps, as well as a semi-isolated ‘dry-corner’ — for tracking intimate vocals, delicate acoustic instruments and super-dry drum sounds.

The Cottage is our self-contained band accommodation, adjoining the studio. Aside from housing you while you make a record, the building is sometimes used as a break-out acoustic space during sessions. There are both speaker and microphone tie-lines connecting the building to the live room — usually incorporated for amplifier isolation during loud tracking situations.

The Big Room is Sound Recordings’ prized ‘acoustic echo chamber’. Located further afield, the room is a 12m x 16m ‘hall’, with brick walls, timber floors and a 4m-high timber-lined ceiling. This space is used as another zone of isolation during band tracking sessions (it’s great for loud / lead guitars, where close and far microphone placement is desirable). The Big Room is also used during the mixing process as an acoustic reverb chamber. Microphones can be moved around in this space to control width and depth of the returning ambience, while ‘pre-delay’ is often applied to the send, to displace the onset of the reverb and provide feedback / modulation control. Sounds like Hollywood!

PROCESS

When recording, Alex focuses on capturing amazing live performances, emphasising the importance of acquiring great sounds, at the source. Favouring the use of our ears, Alex encourages musicians to create the sound they want to hear, in the room they are in, before carefully considering microphone choice and placement.

An engineer — in the old-fashioned sense of the word — Alex restores and maintains all of the tape machines on site. During a recording session, it is not uncommon to find them with a screwdriver in-hand, fine tuning the operation of a tape machine on the fly.

If you have any questions about recording to tape, please contact Alex.

EVERYBODY IS WELCOME

Alex is a proud queer person and strives to make Sound Recordings a safe and accessible space. We welcome people of colour, LGBTQIA+ folks, those with disabilities and any level of musical ability. Everyone can make a record here!

TESTIMONIALS

  • "It's true!! This record (and countless others) wouldn't sound anywhere near as cool as they do without your marvellous skill and care."

    Alex ‘Gormie’ O’Gorman (recording engineer)

  • "Alex really allowed us to cook as hard as we did. He's a very well-versed enabler of doing crazy shit in the studio. The resampled drums was definitely a stand-out."

    Eugene, 00_

  • "Thank you so much for having us at your recording studio! We are so grateful for your expertise and your suggestions throughout were so spot on. We all felt comfy and appreciative of the space."

    Bec Taylor-Marshall, Hetslayer